The Exorcism
by darklight ascendant
Summary: ever wondered why the fairies have so many limitations? ever wondered how screwed up the Council was? ever wondered if monkeys are sentient?
1. Rhyme and Reason

**The Exorcism**

  


Rhyme and Reason

  


_c. _A.D. 2100

  


"You are aware that we have not much time for this, Foaly."

"Oh, really? So tell me, Commander Root, what exactly had been keeping you on your toes since Artemis' mind-wipe was consummated successfully?"

For a microsecond, the look on Commander Julius Root's face was one of absolute regret. Foaly decided, on better judgment, to suppress the rapidly snowballing laugh from exiting his horsy mouth. It itched like an accidentally-swallowed stink worm in his throat. 

"Stop it, you two!" Captain Trouble Kelp insisted. "Since Foaly is so sure that Fowl will never remember the People again, why should we take the bother to remember him? Proceed, Foaly." Captain Holly Short's smile returned, but a bit less buoyant than it had been.

"Anyway, the research on the Tara original of the Booke of the People has yielded some results. There has been a... discovery."

"Proceed."

"As you well know, legend states that there are eight original copies of the Booke. One gifted to the first fairies, and the other seven buried around the world in various locations. The first Council decided that every fairy would have their own copy of the Booke, and those were copied from the first Booke, titled the Tuatha original. However, the Council has never bothered with searching for the other originals, as they were too busy with the threat of the Mud People. However, after the recent series of conflicts with - " Foaly decided to be tactful " - he who need not be named, and our eventual victory, the Council decided that Mud Men no longer posed an immediate threat. However, they did perceive that the rapid technological development of the Mud Men might pose a long-term danger to the survival of the People. That was their two-pronged motive in initiating the search for the seven originals – to make use of the resources developed against Mud Men, and hoping that the seven other originals might hold new magic or words to increase the strength of the fairies."

"So they discovered the first original."

"At Tara, yes. Now the latest news is that they have located another original, somewhere within the Antarctic Circle. In the meanwhile, our scientists have been working with the Tara original."

"So what have they found? What does it concern the LEP?" Commander Root demanded to know. The first hues of crimson were coming on.

"The originals contain palimpsest messages."

"Palimpsest?"

"A Mud Man concept, from the days of the Egyptians. Their palimpsests were papyri that were reused after the original message had been erased. The palimpsest contained many different layers of information, each succeeding layer harder and harder to read under the written text."

"So the Booke originals have another layer of information. Why doesn't this extra information show up in our standard copies?" Captain Holly wondered aloud.

"The copies of the Booke are produced by optical reproduction, similar to a primitive Mud Man operation they call _Xeroxing,_ that doesn't preserve the palimpsest information. The palimpsest information in the originals comes from the fact that they were hand-written, as far as we can tell. The ink deposits have varying heights, and the differences, measured in micrometers, appear to have been very deliberately deposited. We used a numeric-Gnommish conversion technique on the Tara original and came up with this rhyme:

_Half floors and half floor above the foundation_

_of dwelling that needs no human invitation_

_a chamber of lights and a gem of pure darkness_

_begin transformation of underground nation._

__

The air in the room froze as Foaly recited the verse quietly, moving the LEP officers almost to tears in the way only centaurs can as readers of poetry.

__

_Spheres aligned channel great realms of pure power_

_what once drove two races apart and asunder_

_must now be destroyed or all, even light, will_

_fold and crumble under apocalypse thunder._

_An alchemist's treasure People must locate_

_and change the horror of race who will dictate_

_the Universe, better in peace than in war_

_such the People's mandate, so they resonate."_

  


The room was still; even Root's face looked more like the 'after' mug shot in a skin whitener commercial. It was as if there were _others_ in the room, mystical forces somehow summoned by the reading of the stirring verse, before which there was no response other than awed and sacred respect.

Captain Holly stirred. "Does the Tuatha original have a similar palimpsest?"

"Yes. It simply says, '_The other originals have important messages coded this way.'_

The awed and sacred respect deflated like a punctured balloon.

"All this is some mystical mumbo-jumbo! What does the LEP have to do with this? The Council wanted such rhymes; let _them_ have it." Commander Root had regained his trademark complexion.

"Oh, really. Don't you want some adventure. Now that Arty's gone, you might never get a chance for excitement again."

"Stop it, you horse ass!"

"I am not a horse! And I am NOT an ass! I am a centaur! Read my lips - "

"Oh yeah? They're so thick, you could put a meat patty between them and have a hamburger!"

"You're so red, they oughta call you Tomato Root!"

Captain Holly was still in a daze. She always was dazed a while once she heard _his_ name. Only Captain Trouble took the trouble to tell them to

"STOP IT!"

They snapped out of their debate and looked, abashed, at Trouble. As if explaining, both stuck out their fingers (well, Foaly his hoof) at each other and said simultaneously, "HE started it."

"Whatever, you two," Holly snapped. "So, Foaly, what _does _the Council want with the LEP?"

"To them, it sounds like the rhyme calls for the retrieval and harnessing of several ancient artifacts. Who else to do it?"

Three LEP officers groaned simultaneously.

  



	2. Missions

**The Exorcism**

  


II: Missions

  


"So, horse, what's it all supposed to mean?"

Foaly had gouged out a rough agreement from the three officers – Commander Root, Captain Trouble and Captain Holly – to help in whatever maniacal plan the Council had. Of course, without Fowl, little was maniacal anymore in Haven.

They hated the absence.

"Nobody knows. Not the Council, not the professors and sages, not even me. The consensus thus far is that this involves the unleashing of some artifacts, at some location, that will cause a transformation of the People. That's it."

"That's it? That's all there is?"

"Why, it's like looking for a stink worm in a dwarf's house!" Holly said. "How are we supposed to do something that ambiguous?"

"Well, we do have exactly one lead. There are seven originals scattered throughout the world, including the Tara and Antarctica originals. I have been theorizing about the locations of the remaining five. My current hypothesis is that they are arrayed at the vertices of a pseudo-regular hexagon," here he called up a diagram, a pale shade of a globe floating in nothingness, "with one more at the center. Taking the Tara-Antarctica line as a primary axis, here are the theoretical locations of the remaining five."

"Colombia, at the Cordillera mountain range," Captain Trouble read off the map. "Four more at sea. I wonder why?"

"Whatever the reason, that makes it easier for us to retrieve them without human detection," Commander Root noted.

"One off the coast of Chile, one in the far Atlantic, one in the Indian Ocean between Somalia and Iraq, and one last one in the far Indian," Captain Holly said. "It's as if they were spread so that it would take a long time to discover them."

"In the meantime, the Council has asked us to assist the Antarctica expedition. I'll be going there myself."

Everyone looked at Foaly in surprise. The last time he had went outside Haven – indeed, outside the Ops booth and LEP headquarters – had been - "Yes, I know, not since the Fowl Manor siege, eh? I need the air."

"So when do we leave?"

"Two hours' time."

  


There was a small constellation of military medals in the assembly of the army generals. They sat around the stout square table in the smoke-filled room, poring over a map of the Antarctic circle.

"Camp Ohio has been reporting some unexplained thermal spikes in the region lately."

"These are just deviations of slightly over a hundredth of a degree Celsius, with a huge error margin. It could be little more than snowfall friction heat."

"However, the experimental gravity-wave stations at Upstream 1 and 2 are also reporting unusually high error occurrences in their instruments. These indicate large mass movements at the Pole itself."

"The Pole? With temperatures below neg 50 degrees at this time of the year? What sort of people are doing things there?"

"I see." The shadowy figure at the head of the table raised his voice for the first time. "This does warrant an expedition, if only for the sake of reconnaissance. Deploy one unit. Arctic Special forces need training."

Deep within the Pentagon, snowsleds roared into life.


	3. Mishaps

**The Exorcism**

  


III: Mishaps

  


They performed the Ritual first, at the place with so many memories. But this could not damp their initial enthusiasm. "Let's see if I can break my old airspeed record," Commander Root jested.

"Not with him strapped on, you won't," Trouble laughed, pointing at a visibly uncomfortable Foaly trussed up in a harness and hooked to a Moonbelt. "Last one there is a stink-worm!"

Immediately, three figures buzzed into invisibility under the full moon. Foaly had to be content with a strategically-placed piece of cam foil. "I'm a centaur, not a pegasus," he grumbled under his breath.

  


"Hmm. There's something here."

The four shielded fairies stopped, hovering over a featureless expanse of ocean. They turned to look at Holly who had just spoke over the intercom. "What?"

"I... can't tell. It has a little of an indistinct signature, but... it's there. There's magic out here. It's very, very small, but significant."

"This route has been flown quite often. Why wouldn't anyone have noticed it before?"

"It makes sense... they weren't looking for anything," Foaly interjected. "This is right where I've predicted one of the books should be."

"Funny... it's so near Atlantis," Trouble noted. "Would they have noticed?"

"Whatever. Let's not lose focus, people. Now that we know Foaly's theory is correct, we still have the Antarctic assignment to complete. Let's go!"

  


At Foaly's request, they stopped short of the Pole itself. "What is it now?"

"I'm getting some weird communication signals out here... wait, let me pinpoint it."

About a hundred feet below them, the Antarctic ice was slick and white, not having seen snowfall recently. The night was clear and the wind low – unusual – but on the white of Antarctic ice, there were shadows and figures moving.

"What the – this isn't good. I'm picking up US military frequencies. Closed circuit; I'd need more tech equipment and a lower position to intercept directly."

"What's so unusual about that?" Holly asked. "After all, aren't there many US research bases operational on Antarctica?"

"But – high powered snowsleds, night-vision goggles, carbines and snipers, and newly developed Special Forces personal-environment suits, specially adapted against the cold. This isn't a scientific expedition – this is an army mission."

"D'Arvit! Those Council idiots," Root swore. "Tell me, what else is there to investigate on Antarctica?"

Four jaws went slack simultaneously. "They couldn't have been," Trouble said in shock.

"Yes, they were discovered."

"But how? Foaly, wouldn't your comm sats have picked up any transmissions from the Antarctic bases?" Holly asked.

"It's harder than you think," Foaly responded. "For one, there are no satellites that orbit directly over Antarctica. The magnetosphere fluctuations wouldn't permit any useful electronics to survive. It is possible to intercept any signals from the bases there, but you'd have to know what you were looking for beforehand and where to look. Furthermore, I know from our covert espionage that most important communications – like a call for military investigation – would be delivered physically, by snowsled to ships and then through air mail. Can't intercept those – you'd have to physically stop them."

"Magnetosphere fluctuations..." Trouble began musing. "Wait. Foaly, how does that happen?"

"Well, charged particles from the sun stream outwards through the solar system. Some of them are trapped at the Earth's magnetic poles – wait, now I see!"

"It's the solar radiation," Root realized. "It can also bleach our magic, but its effect must be weaker because it's outside the visible spectrum. The Council has been operating close to the focal point of the solar radiation – the South Magnetic Pole..."

Dramatically enough, somewhere four miles eastwards, a curtain of air began to subtly glow green.

"The aurora australis," Holly whispered, amazed at its beauty and its current, newfound danger. "Solar particles energizing the molecules of the air to radiate light. You're right, Root! I can feel our shields weakening."

"But we're still invisible. Surely the Council's magic couldn't have been destroyed by the solar radiation?"

"You have to remember, Trouble, that their spells are much more complex and demanding than a simple shielding. The spell would be attacked at multiple places by the solar particles, and all the time the mages might be too busy casting the spells to notice how the spells are being weakened," Foaly replied.

"Considering the size of their operation, even a small breach in their spells would result in a noticeable change in the environmental conditions," Holly deduced. "Easy for sophisticated sensors, like those at research stations, to detect."

"So, now what are our orders?"

"What else can we do? We have to help them!"

They flew, all the more anxious, towards the Pole.


	4. Stubbornness

**The Exorcism**

  


IV: Stubbornness

  


"Chairman Cahartez, please cease operations immediately!"

Holly glowered at the bellowing Root, his face an exquisite shade of purple. She tugged at the sleeve of his uniform, trying to get him to not make them all sound like the roguish and violently barbaric fools the Council secretly made the LEP out to be. Luckily for her, Chairman Cahartez was not a similarly hot-tempered elf. Acting as if he hadn't just been charged by an angry bull troll (or screamed at by Root – both usually had the same effect), he calmly smiled and said, "Ah, Commander Root! How nice of you to come! We have been anticipating your arrival."

As Trouble tried to untruss Foaly, Cahartez continued to explain the situation. "We've found a significant magic signature right below the South Pole. Triangulation by our expert warlocks have placed it about 2 kilometers below the ice. Right now, we are using displacement spells to move the ice out of the hole. Bit by bit we are excavating a central shaft, through which two or three elves might be able to descend and retrieve the Antarctica original."

"Right. Has anybody told you the humans are coming?"

Root shouted so loud, the entire fairy camp heard him. At first they were silent. Then a lone sprite started laughing, and everyone soon understood what they thought the commander's purpose was. They would have rolled on the floor laughing, if the floor wouldn't freeze them on impact. A few of the more daring ones clapped. Root's face would have glowed ultraviolet if it could. Holly continued tugging ever more fervently at her effervescent commander's sleeves.

"Wait." Foaly had finally gotten free of his harness. "Tell me, have your displacement spells been working as effectively as you planned?"

"Um... no."

"Why displacement spells? Why not just use dwarves or conventional digging techniques?" Trouble interrupted.

"That's because," Cahartez said, irritated, "we don't want too much of a trace to be left. Besides, dwarves can't ingest anything below negative 25 degrees Celsius without taking internal injury."

"And why are we here?"

"To guard us, of course. If the - " here he suppressed a giggle, " - _humans_ come."

"Yeah, I get it. Foaly?"

"As I was saying. Tell me, Chairman, have your spells been working at full efficiency? Or even 80 percent?"

"Strangely, they've only been working at about 45-65 percent of theoretical limits."

"And why is that?" Foaly asked gently, nudging them to the same conclusion Root was reaching with his tremulous bellows.

"Because of the cold, I guess. Right?"

"Not really true. If you remember the legends, San D'Klass had his base at the North Pole. _His_ mages weren't affected by the cold."

"Hmm... that's right."

"Chairman, your magic is being bleached."

That,no one laughed at.

"What?"

"I repeat," Foaly said gently, "your magic is being bleached."

"But... how? This is the time of perpetual night at the Pole, is it not?"

"Yes, there is no _visible_ solar radiation. But at the South Magnetic Pole, charged solar particles are attracted into the Earth's magnetosphere and excite the molecules of the air. The aurora australis. Some of the particles with lower ionization effects get into the lower atmosphere. Both the aurora and the other solar particles are bleaching your advanced shield magic, as well as your displacement spells."

"So? Our warlocks are very strong. They wouldn't be affected by such a weak radiation effect."

"No, they would be too busy casting the spell to notice that their spells are slowly unraveling. The spells aren't negated outright, but weakened and confined. These are our predicted results which would be detected by the nearby research stations."

Foaly handed technical reports to Cahartez and Root. "These are only increases of about two or three percent. Would it be noticeable?"

"It's true that these fluctuations are within an expectable range. They can be explained by natural processes. But what would alert them is the placement of the anomalies. They are well-ordered, occupying strategic places. Even the Mud Men, stupid as they are, would naturally conclude that there is other intelligent life working on the South Pole."

"Hmm... what shall we do?"

"If I were you, I'd pack up and go look for some other original which is easier to extricate."

"We will... confer."

With that, Cahartez walked off, Root on his tail. Trouble sighed. "The Council think they are such damn geniuses. Truth is, without the Mud Men threats prodding them they've grown rusty. Slow. What would they do without us LEP?"

  



	5. Firestorm

**The Exorcism**

  


V: Firestorm

  


The meeting room was simple, unlike the lavish conference hall they had back in Haven, for this was just a field base. And a field base at temperatures less than negative 40 degrees Celsius and wind speeds of over 100 kilometers per hour had to emphasize stability over elegance. Still, there were vestiges of ornamentation, even here at the South Pole. A sack of acorns was left in a corner of the room. As if anyone could do the Ritual here.

Chairman Cahartez was seated comfortably in his chair, wearing that pointy hat of his. Somehow, Root took offence at it. He was understandably irritable, and he suspected that under that annoyingly pointed hat was an exquisitely empty vacuum, residing just where Cahartez's brain ought to be. Still, he was a political ally, and politics often mattered where intelligence did not. Right now Cahartez was rising to speak.

"Commander Root and his LEP team have presented us with a scenario of - " here he held back a chuckle, to Root's visible annoyance - "of human invasion. It is true that they were brought here specifically to broach that threat, particularly since they were the main players involved with the most recent human of significance, Artemis Fowl, who was successfully neutralized as a result of their heroic actions. However, it appears that the situation involving human detection and invasion has already been planned for. Councillor Vinyaya?"

As Vinyaya rose, so did hope in Root's heart. He had known her to be a thinking elf, not someone purely bent on destroying the Mud People as he had known others to be. "We have been planning a spell that will quickly end our period of expedition here. We had realized that coexisting aboveground with humans for a significant period of time would inherently bring risk of detection, but we have apparently overestimated the efficacy of our shields. But now, there is a short-term solution that will have our task finished within 72 hours. Watch."

She called up a visual of Earth. At least, it was a spinning ball of blue and brown, with continents vaguely resembling Earth's. But the continents looked – extended. As if the oceans were much smaller and the continents stretched out longer. She sensed their ambiguity. "This is not a straightforward land-sea representation of Earth," she said. "It shows the tectonic structure of Earth. The brown is thicker continental crust and the blue is thinner oceanic crust. The red lines that you see running through the map are boundaries between tectonic plates, and the green push-pin that you see in the southern extremity is the location of our camp: at the South Pole.

"Notice the tectonic structure of Antarctica. It is just a single plate. However, there is still an outlet for magma on Antarctica. It is a volcano called Mount Erebus," here she magnified the map, presenting a flat projection of the Antarctic Circle, and pointed out a glowing red triangle northwest of the green pushpin. "It is what human scientists call a hot-spot, a place where molten rock rises towards the surface of the tectonic plate. The area inherently has natural stresses and we are able to use it as a fissure point for a critical explosion."

"Wait a minute," Root got up to speak, "you want to blow up Antarctica? Gee, if you want to wave a big sign to the humans saying 'Fairies are here, come and get us!' aren't there less destructive and expensive ways to do it?"

Chairman Cahartez said, "Commander Root, sit down. We understand your concerns and we will give you time to voice them once Councillor Vinyaya has completed her explanation. Councillor Vinyaya?"

"Thank you, Chairman. Now, we are not planning to change the structure of Antarctica tectonically. We will just channel some of the potential energy inherent in the Mount Erebus structure to fissure the permafrost ice covering Antarctica's land surface. Using complementary sonic resonators, we will focus and amplify the fissuring reaction towards the location of the Booke. Then it will act as a second fissure point, forming a giant crevasse in the ice layer and allowing us to retrieve the Booke."

"Thank you, Vinyaya. Any – yes, Commander Root, you may object now."

Root was waving his hand frantically in the air at the moment, as if it was not enough for the Council to note his deeply violet complexion. He erupted from his seat to question Vinyaya. "Councillor, won't an unexplained explosion on Antarctica supplement the humans' earlier evidence concerning our activities? How will this course of action increase our chances of remaining concealed?"

"Mount Erebus does explode. We are just hastening and harnessing its explosion."

"And what of the safety of the humans in various research stations on Antarctica?"

"The fissuring reaction should be limited to the immediate vicinity of the Booke site. Nevertheless, the security of Mud Men should remain the responsibility of Mud Men. We cannot be taken to charge on the account of inferior intelligence."

Root swore. The anti-Mud Man sentiment was infecting the upper echelons of the People so quickly. It was easy for them to exaggerate and retell the danger they posed to the People, to appeal to what had now become romantic myths about Artemis Fowl – myths that invariably excluded his assistance during the Bwa'Kell uprising. The dangerous mix of aloofness, hostility and fear was not unexpected among the common people, but who would have thought it could distort the Council – the Council! "They are intelligent and they are sentient as well, regardless! Surely you cannot abandon them to death or harm by our actions!"

"Yes, we can, and we will."

"Vinyaya! Of all people, I - "

"That's enough!" Cahartez interrupted the growing firestorm of words between them. "Commander Root, please keep your propriety at all times. This is the Council, not some bar filled with drunkards or some Mud Man government."

"With all due respect, _Councillor_ Vinyaya, there should be an alternative method to solve the crisis. A method that will result in the loss of no lives, whether People or Mud Men."

"And what exactly do you propose, Commander Root?"

"An immediate and complete evacuation. Frequent monitoring until we are sure that the humans' interest has waned sufficiently and that solar radiation is at acceptable levels. Then we move back in, using a small-footprint colonization pattern and lowering all unnecessary energy usage."

"Commander Root. Do you realize how implausible your idea is?"

"Surprise me."

"With all the necessary precautions it would take us ten years!"

"What are ten years to a fairy?"

"Ten years are ten years too long," Cahartez responded. "We decided that it was best to maximize operational output, even if that meant risking detection, to shorten the duration of our stay here."

"So that's it!" Root spluttered. "That's the real reason you guys were detected! Right, Cahartez? You were so lax about security because you couldn't wait to get your damn butts out of the freezing cold! And you had this cock-eyed idea of blowing up Antarctica so that even if the humans did detect you you could just blow them up in the name of 'maximizing operational output'! Right, Cahartez, right?"

Cahartez remained sombre, but had a touch of veiled anger in it. "You have committed several breaches of protocol and general courtesy in the past few minutes, _Commander_ Root. Do not add enough to endanger your perfectly stellar career."

"D'Arvit, that's what it's all about, isn't it? Your harebrained scheme to - "

"_COMMANDER ROOT!"_

"May I interrupt you gentlemen." The zip of the canvas door to the room opened, and for a moment the sound of the blizzard outside overpowered the rancorous discussion. Foaly walked in, taking care to quickly zip the door shut behind himself. "Chairman Cahartez, as an honorary consultant to the LEP - "

"Honorary?" Cahartez's eyes narrowed on Root. "What's all this?"

"After all, he _did_ successfully mind-wipe the human, Fowl."

"Alright, the honour is accepted. Proceed."

"I just think I should be allowed to contribute to the meeting. What are our current plans?"

Councillor Vinyaya ran through the plan again.

"Hmm... let me see if I understand your diagram correctly." Foaly pointed to the wavy red line surrounding the Antarctic plate on the map. "What does this line represent?"

"Faults surrounding the Antarctic tectonic plate."

"What kind of faults?"

"They're just... faults."

"You mean, where the two plates slide past each other?"

"Well... to a first-degree approximation," (was that a flicker of uncertainty across Vinyaya's face?) ", yes."

"Excuse me," Cahartez interrupted, "but Mr. Foaly, what does this have to do with anything?"

"Nothing," said Foaly, with an unusually innocent expression on his face.

"Nothing?"

"Yes. To a first-degree approximation," and he glanced at a grimacing Vinyaya.

"Then why are you here?"

"Oh, just to let you know that whatever you decide to do, do it fast. Within five hours, in fact. That's the estimated time of arrival of the human troops at our position."


	6. Caucus

**The Exorcism**

  


VI: Caucus

  


**caucus**_: noun_ (pl. **caucuses**) **1** _derog._ a small dominant group of people taking independent decisions within a larger organization. **2** _North Amer., esp. US_ a group of members of a political party, or a meeting of such a group for some purpose. _- Chambers Encyclopedic Dictionary_

  


"Gentlemen, we are preparing for an invasion upon unknown forces at the Pole."

There were ten men, sitting on the bench like ten inordinately stuffed penguins – and doing no better than an ordinary, live one with the cold for all their stuffings – in the shelter at Camp Ohio. Before them was a hardened general from the days of hand-to-hand combat, when stratospheric pinpoint laser satellites were just the stuff of paranoid sci-fi writers' nightmares. The US military needed him because they didn't want to just splash the area with hard radiation, the way they had won the last two global wars within the century's turn. They wanted to grab all the technology they could before throwing the nuke.

Camp Ohio was ordinarily a research station, and the closest one to the Pole, at 560 km. Of course it would have been a lot better if it had been a lot closer, but with temperatures below negative 40 degrees Celsius and wind speeds of over 100 kilometers per hour, nobody hears complaints about having to commute 10 hours from workplace to bunk and bath. The bath water wasn't warm either, by the way, but these were men who had touched more solid than liquid water in their lives.

And still, they were shivering. Not a good omen. The general clenched his teeth.

"Did you hear me, _gentlemen_?" he fairly roared. "We are invading _unknown_ forces at the Pole! We don't know what exactly they have, except that they have some form of electromagnetic jamming that is screwing up our stratospheric satellite cameras. Damn bird pictures so screwed that their maximum resolution is 50 by 50 _kilometer_ patches. You get an idea what we're up against?"

Faces as blank as the tarp that was the wall of their camp. This was not good.

"You little... never mind. Your orders, whether you like it or not, are to go there, covertly, and observe. Understand? _Covertly_. Don't go running in like those damn desert troops tried in Gulf War II. Know what happened?"

They didn't. It was hard to keep books from falling apart in Arctic training environments.

"Damn troops thought they kicked Saddam's ass. The next year, without warning Saddam throws a monster EMP. Every circuit in Iraq fried, from the fuzes in their bombs right down to the relays in their washing machines. Idiots surrendered in 36 hours." The general paused for effect. He got none besides the shimmering aura of boredom. "The Americans blew their asses open to all sorts of surveillance, intelligence, sabotage. I don't want you doing that. We don't know the technological capability of these... people. All we can predict is that they have a conventional carbon-hydrogen-oxygen-nitrogen based biology. That's it.

"And, for crying out loud, _observe_. I don't want you going in _bang-bang-bang_ the way you damn Americans do, and then rush in and realise they've destroyed everything of value. Stay on the perimeter, concealed, recording everything visually, and then try to commence intelligent discourse. Knowing you soldier types, intelligent may be a lot to ask, but for friggin' please _try_, OK? Fire only on firing back, and you have strict authorization to kill only – and only if – a comrade is wounded. Breach of these guidelines will result in military trial, a definite demotion and a likely dismissal altogether. Understood?"

Silence. Then, among the men, a morose nod of heads spread like a zombie's idea of a Mexican wave. The general slapped his head. Maybe the damn apartheids would never get used to being ordered around by an Asiatic.

"Whatever. Gentlemen, pack up. We leave within the hour."

They got up with a half-hearted "Yes, sir" between shivering teeth. The general clenched his teeth again. This was not going to go well.

  


They were halfway there when Foaly picked up their heat signatures and informed the Council. There was a brooding silence, the air coiled with inertia like a python encircling her brood.

Then Cahartez spoke up. "Gentlemen, this greatly changes our situation. How long will it take us to pack up?"

"Six... sixteen hours," Councillor Fracine Rose said timidly.

"Commander Root, I presume that renders your _plan_ inviable."

"The spells are fully pumped at Mount Erebus and the other resonators are firmly in place. Actually, we could complete terminal-stage explosion within two-and-a-half hours," Vinyaya said coyly.

At this, Root's skin turned its deepest shade of purple yet.

"Let's put it through a vote, shall we? All in favor?"

But it was Foaly who stepped through the door first, followed by Root. And back within the room, every right hand raised in unanimous assent. 

  


"It's not a valid decision!" Root swore as he kicked the snow at his feet. "Entire Council isn't here! There are just five Council members here."

"What do they care? They're just a damn caucus!

"Yeah, they're dead alright."

"No, a caucus, not a carcass. A small group of people being dominant in an organization. A Mud invention. Interesting thing is, they use it as an insult." A horsy smile played on Foaly's lips.

"Well?"

"I could tell, from the moment I walked in, that there was no dissuading them. In fact, even before." A smile played at his lips.

"You were eavesdropping? Why you..."

"Just enough to know that you, or I, can't stop them. And they're going to bring disaster."

"Come on, we don't need a Foaly to know that!"

"No, it's worse than you think. Remember when I asked Vinyaya what the line represented?"

"Yes. She said they were faults where the plates slid past each other."

"That's wrong. The ones on the eastern coast are. The ones on the western coast are divergent boundaries. Along divergent boundaries molten rock, or magma, from beneath Earth's crust rises steadily towards the surface, pushing apart the tectonic plates on either side of the boundary. Now, transform boundaries – where plates are sliding past each other – don't hold any energy. But divergent plates do. They squish the plate up like so much jelly, but because rock _is_ so hard, a part of that energy is stored in the boundary and the plate in the form of sub-bedrock pressure. Guess what happens when that's released?"

"D'Arvit. Those idiots."

"Relax, Root. It gets better. Have you ever wondered why Haven is so cool?"

"Cool? _Cool?_ To you, maybe, because you spend all your nerd centaur life cooped-up down there in air-conditioning!"

"No, seriously. Think about it. For a place so close to the core, it could be a lot hotter. I've done sims before. 79 degrees Celsius, that's how hot it can be there. Not enough to make centaur bacon, granted, but still hot enough to disable any subterranean lifeforms made of water. Which explains, by the way, why the People who colonized the underground weren't immediately wiped out by indigenous life which would have been better adapted."

"So, tell me. Why is it so cool?"

"Because the Earth's asthenosphere – the region covering the lower crust and high upper mantle, on which the tectonic plates rest – is riddled with tunnels and cavities, some pressurized. The tunnels were produced most likely by tectonic stress, but not old enough so that life could arise underground. I've done some seismic testing, with instruments so fine you could catch a Mud Man sneezing on a rocket launch. And guess how Haven's connected to the South Pole."

"Oh, no. By the gods."

"There are four air veins between Haven and the Antarctica tectonic plate. Three of them are quite low pressure, and have been blocked up in the development of Haven. But the last one is very high pressure. Guess why the old house in the eastern sector of Haven has been cordoned off for 8000 years."

"The records say there was an outbreak there."

"Yes. Of polar gas. Did you know? I didn't until my predecessor's final breath. Anyway, guess what's going to happen when Antarctica is blown off its hinges."

"The pressure waves are going to come through there and rock Haven."

"And the three dormant veins might blow too, if you're unlucky."

"D'Arvit."

There was a low rumble at the eastern end of the horizon. "That'll be the mages pumping the spell to the penultimate energy level. Within the hour, the spell will overload and explode. Yep, you heard me right. The _spell_ explodes first. Imagine the power!"

"In the Council's hands? That's like giving a dirty nuke to a goblin."

Foaly didn't laugh. "Whatever. I wouldn't want to be around here when Erebus blows. The first time in 700 years. I suggest you get Trouble and Holly and scram fast. I'll go get my harness and pretend again that I'm getting trussed up to be roasted."

Commander Root stalked off, angrily. When Foaly looked carefully at his footprints, he thought he could see soil under the big, deep, angry holes in the snow. He followed. "And let them retrieve their darn Original while the planet is rocking from side to side. Mages have a higher nausea threshold anyway. Though I wonder if they'd fare any better than us under a tonne's worth of avalanche snow." Foaly paused. "I think, frankly, the humans will be better prepared than the damn caucus for that." 

  



End file.
